


Ace of spades

by galient



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Afterlife, Card Games, Complicated Relationships, Conversations, Drabble, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Insane Wilbur Soot, Introspection, Light Angst, Matter of Life and Death, Morally Ambiguous Character, Past Violence, Peace, Symbolism, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-23 13:00:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30055851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galient/pseuds/galient
Summary: "Did you know pips have symbolic meaning to them?" Wilbur had said, one day when Schlatt had a hand full of cards. Schlatt rose an eyebrow, tight lips quirking up."Remind me." He said, and Wilbur shuffled a heavy pile of blue pattern backed cards.-What is death without its acknowlagement? How do you- how do you deal with its aftermath? With its breath on your face or its hand around your throat. How do you deal with knowing things come to an end?Wilbur doesn't.
Relationships: Jschlatt & Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 3
Kudos: 25





	Ace of spades

Wilbur flicked a card between his fingers, wiping his forefinger over the smooth edges. A four of hearts, its red was bright in the dark expanse of the afterlife, and its slick reflection portrayed the slight expression on his face. 

Sitting in the void, he had time for everything, so he filled the time with cards and memories. He liked playing cards, liked how many possible games were created using them, and the various combinations of shapes and numbers. Solitaire and poker were ones he liked particularly, and sometimes when Schlatt came to pursue his ventures, Wilbur rattled off poems and old fantastical stories while Schlatt was waxing poetic about pipe dreams and liquor. 

"Did you know pips have symbolic meaning to them?" Wilbur had said, one day when Schlatt had a hand full of cards. Schlatt rose an eyebrow, tight lips quirking up. 

"Remind me." He said, and Wilbur shuffled a heavy pile of blue pattern backed cards. "Well, many different cultures and worlds have had differently printed and used suits," Wilbur began, factually, "But Europe in the 16th century was very interested in the distinction of playing cards, plus the divination behind tarot cards." 

Wilbur slipped a black two of diamonds to the forefront of his palm, and Schlatt sipped a tasteless mug of rum. "The origins to their meanings is otherwise- lost, but people speculate, and diamonds," Wilbur placed the card in between both his hands, pads of his fingers pressing into the white. "Diamonds, mean money, new beginnings, development, and related to the astrology element of fire." 

Schlatt hummed, "Money? I like that." He said, and Wilbur laughed that giggle of his. "I know you do." 

Shadows didn't exist in the void, there was no source of light, just the hazy glow of their skin that lacked visible folds in their clothes. It was odd, the first time Wilbur had noticed the lack of shadow or light, the absence was normal now, and the cursed foreverness was simulacrum but unstoppable in his plight. 

Wilbur had lots of time to think about life, in his death, so he did. He recited backlit phrases he created from his mind about life and death, and its naturalness and purpose to the universe in his otherwise lonesomeness. His soul wasn't rested, but without his actual body or life he reflected fully on himself. 

Time in the afterlife worked differently, just a day in the overworld could be months in the vast expanse of the void, and Wilbur had been stuck in its clutches for a muddled and blanked time of years. Tommy had bitterly named their afterlife, 'the death zone' while Wilbur had mulled the blonde over. 

"What does Ace of spade mean, then?" Schlatt asked later, after Wilbur ran through half memorized meanings of cards and ignoring the bored groaning from the ram hybrid, voice lit with a tired slur as Wilbur flips through clean cut cards. "Ace of spades?" Wilbur wondered, and flicked through the information huddled in his brain. 

"Highest card in the deck, usually, right?" Schlatt said, rubbing the ridged edge of the card to his chin to itch it. Wilbur nodded. "Hm, yes." 

Wilbur set his shoulders back, leaning against nothing as he looked up. "Well, Spades are usually meant to symbolize wisdom and acceptance, and was used as a sign of the military in war." It was rather funny, using a deck of cards as a symbol for their own past war and misjudgments, whether it was subtle or obvious was uncertain, and to Wilburs amusement he didn't care. 

"Ace of spades, however, were meaningful as an indication of uh, misfortune and death." Wilbur recounted with a sheepish tinge, the irony of its meaning causing him to cast a bout of nostalgia into the air. "Funny, huh?" Wilbur chuckled, and Schlatt smiled crookedly. 

His old friend and enemy flipped over two ace spades, waving them blankly. "Gold fish, I guess." 

"We were gonna play solitaire." Wilbur grinned in puzzlement. 

"What's the difference?" Schlatt grumbled, and Wilbur laughed. 

Later, Wilbur will ponder again over cards and its suits, running a worn thumb over a dark piped pip. 

"Shut up." Tommy tells him, once, hand clamped over his ears while Wilbur carries on with his tirades about the universe and its cruelty. 

"Why?" Wilbur counters, and the life that drills in Tommy's soul is bountiful and loud. It's dark and clouded, tainted by trauma and the complexity of his past. Wilbur knows he shares a large chunk of blame for that, and he still harbors the great burden of L'manburg and it's past citizens on his shoulders. 

Wilbur doesn't plan on or bet on any decisions he may have to make in the future, if he gets revived. Dream is a fool, and so is everyone else on the server, but messing with the afterlife was taboo. The only thing he could do to get away from the things he's done was to waste away his last life, if Dream made him come back to life and be forced to live through that server again he would bring hell to pay. 

"I don't like it when you talk like that." Tommy said, voice unsteady as he hugs his knees. "I don't even like it when you talk at all." 

"Okay." Wilbur responded, and he dropped it. Wilbur wasn't stupid, he knew what he did to Tommy. But he was dead, it wasn't his business anymore to mend whatever relationship he had with Tommy left. If Tommy hated him, fine. Lots of people did. He couldn't change that. 

"We were born for this." Wilbur tells him, once. Tommy looked at him quizzically, tilting his head. His blonde hair bounces as he does. 

"Dying. It, It was always going to end like this, you know?" Wilbur said, fist raised to his chin in thought. Tommy looked away, off to the dark nothingness. "I don't." 

"Well, think chekhov's gun. Every element in a story has a part as the whole. The end." Wilbur ran a hand through his unruly hair. 

"You mean like the butterfly effect?" Tommy mutters, and Wilbur shrugs. "Sure." 

The brunette grinned. "Things would have always had to play out this way, Tommy." He folded his sleeves back and crossed his arms together. He looked at Tommy with delight. "Me dying, blowing up L'manburg. It all came into play." 

"What- so you mean you don't regret anything you did?" Tommy asked, voice incredulous and drenched in that shaky breath he takes on when he's nervous. 

"Of course I don't." Wilbur replied, easy. Tommy clenched his fists. 

"You sick bastard." Tommy snarled, and Wilbur laughed loudly. "That's the thing, Tommy, you can't change _any of it._ it's all already been done!" The brunette exclaimed, waved his hand into the void. 

"That's, it's all how it ends. We all die eventually," Wilbur knows he must sound hysterical, with the fearful look Tommy sends him. "That means _nothing_ matters! So why even try, Tommy?" 

Tommy leant down from his place on the nonexistent floor, tugging on the locks of his hair. He wonders how helpless the teen must feel. "Even if I get revived, I could do whatever I want, and it won't matter!" Wilbur felt a tug against his own hair, and realized it was his own fingers. A harsh laugh was ripped from his throat. 

"You're insane, Will." Tommy said, quietly. Wilbur chuckled, and he didn't like how his hairs stood up on end. "Oh you know how much I like a good story, Toms." 

Tommy abruptly stood up, hands pressed against his ears. "Shut up." He hissed, "Stop talking before I make you." 

Wilbur flicked an ace of spades card from his sleeve, testing its flexibility before he crushed it in his hand. It splits off into blue glitched shards, and Wilbur smiled again. 

"Okay, Tommy." 

**Author's Note:**

> "Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her; but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game." - Voltaire


End file.
